audience

Following a mixed Christmas – overall gloom leavened by the occasional boom – 2014 is shaping up to be a year of radical change for the digital retail industry. More so than ever, those who can’t adapt won’t survive the lean Q1 months ahead, so what changes lie in-store now that the tinsel’s down and the profit warnings are looming?

Take a look at your favourite brand’s Facebook page. It’s pretty mature, isn’t it? It’s well managed, it’s active, those guys really know what they’re doing. And it’s not just Facebook – look at the way businesses use Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest and a million other tools. Social has definitely come of age.

Oh, ye of little truth. The co-founder of the private sales site vente-privee, Ilan Benhaim, recently told a crowded conference hall that his site added 10k users per day last year yet, rather surprisingly, doesn’t pay for traffic. Apparently, it’s all word of mouth in the private sales world. It’s all buzz and peer-to-peer and social. Except, clearly, it isn’t.

If phones were cars, the screen would be the dashboard, the CPU would be the engine, the battery would be the gas tank. And the apps? The apps would be the wheels. Without apps, you’re going nowhere. With them, the world’s your oyster.

That’s why the global app market is already worth $27 billion – a massive figure that’s set to grow by 30% within the year. That’s why the world’s most popular app, Facebook Messenger, has over 700 million users. And that’s why each and every one of us has about 22 apps on our phones (in fact, if you’re an Apple muncher, that’s likely to be more like 37).